The Bruins kicked off the first game of their season series with the Maple Leafs in style, with two of their top young forwards achieving milestones and Tim Thomas picking up his second shutout of the season. 

Patrice Bergeron, 25, notched his 100th career goal when he put the Bruins up 1-0 in the first period on a power play tally. 

"It’s fun I guess to get 100 but when you’re a kid, you just want to play in the NHL," Bergeron said. "You don’t think about how many goals you’re going to score. I’m just happy to reach that 100, but there are going to be many more to come. I mean, if our team keeps doing what it’s doing, it doesn’t matter for me if it’s a goal or a good defensive play." 

Tyler Seguin scored his first goal at the Garden on a night in which the fans were particularly inclined to root for him given Phil Kessel's presence. As the 2-0 score would indicate, Kessel increased his streak without a goal against the B's to seven, while it didn't take Seguin long to score against the team he grew up rooting for. 

Here are three things to take coming out of a big divisional win for the Bruins:

TIM THOMAS HAS BEEN THE BEST GOALIE IN THE NHL THIS SEASON

Thomas only had to see 20 shots in the win, something for which the Bruins defense (see below) deserves a lot of credit. Then again, don't you credit the goalie when, in his fifth game, you can figure he'd stop all 20 shots?

That's the type of season it's been for Tim Thomas. Granted, Tuukka Rask has allowed quite a few flukey goals that have illustrated his bad luck, but remember that one of the three goals Thomas has allowed this season -- Jason Chimera's tally in the home-opener against the Capitals -- was off a turnover caused by Thomas. The guy's allowed three goals in five games, and one of them was the height of iffy. 

As Claude Julien told a Finnish reporter after the morning skate, the Bruins don't have a No. 2 goalie -- they have two No. 1's.

If Julien wanted to go into further detail he could have easily said they have a No. 1 goalie and a No. 1 goalie who fans and media thought was toast and is currently playing out of his mind. 

"I never named anyone a starter," Julien said before the game. "I think it’s been clear the way I coach in the past whoever is doing a good job gets to play, and there’s been times that we’ve had a backup goaltender here that’s been very good and he’s been able to play more than one game and we’ve ridden him as long as we could, and that’s just the way we do things. 

"I am one of those believers that you’ve got to do number one what’s best for the hockey club, and you want to have players who think the same way. I understand that through the season it all balances out."

Thomas has had more than his fair share of doubters in his career, but the only doubt surrounding the 36-year-old is whether that 0.60 goals against average will balloon all the way up to an even 1.00 any time soon. 

SEGUIN AND KESSEL SHOULD GET USED TO THIS 

"It isn't the Boston Bruins vs. Phil Kessel," was how Tim Thomas prefaced the game. Many would beg to differ, as it seems that Kessel lost big time on Thursday night. 

The sold out Garden was positively brutal on the 23-year-old, continuing to boo the young goal-scorer they once embraced and cheering on Seguin seemingly out of spite. 

“I could care less, to tell you the truth,” Kessel said of the fans chanting, "Thank you, Kessel" after Seguin's goal. “It doesn’t matter to me one bit.”

What should matter to him is that he has now played seven games against the Bruins and has averaged exactly zero goals per game. Milan Lucic ventured to guess on Wednesday that Kessel struggling vs. his former club must be "eating him up." If it wasn't before Thursday, it's hard to think it isn't now. 

The routine was simple for those on hand: boo when Kessel has the puck, and go bonkers when Seguin has it. Whether Kessel was trying to send the puck out of his own end or Seguin was on a breakaway, the sound was deafening. 

Kessel finished the game with six shots on net, and given the way Thomas has played this season, he shouldn't feel bad. Even so, the idea that Seguin could score in his first foray into the Bruins/Leafs rivalry and matchup of two players linked together by the trade was too much for B's fans to pass up. 

With Seguin being told after the game that he will stay in the NHL and not be sent to the Plymouth Whalers of the OHL, he can expect more of these high-intensity regular season games. 

DEFENSE SHINES WITHOUT BOYCHUK

There were about a zillion story lines surrounding Thursday night's game, but none may have been as directly important to the 2010-11 Bruins than how they would fare in their first game without Johnny Boychuk. Of course, playing in front of a practically unstoppable goaltender makes things a tad easier, but the blueliners passed with flying colors. 

As promised, Claude Julien didn't stick to the same pairings (Chara-Ference, Stuart - Seidenberg, McQuaid - Hunwick) for the entire game, and none of the adjusted pairings looked particularly weak. It's quite remarkable to think that 19 days earlier, the team had to break up the Dennis Seidenberg - Matt Hunwick pairing midway through the season-opener, and on Thursday the team trusted the pairing as it mixed things up in the first period. 

Speaking of Seidenberg, he stepped up big time for the B's. Though he didn't really see an increase in ice time (his 22:48 is a minute and a second less than his average on the season) but he blocked an astonishing six shots and got the primary assist on Seguin's goal. It was hard not to take notice of Seidenberg's play. 

"Seidenberg had as many saves as I did tonight, and that’s making it very helpful," Thomas said after the game. 

The only other Bruins player to block multiple shots on Thursday was Andrew Ference, who blocked two. 

Ference also saw the biggest bump in ice time, something one would expect when being paired with Chara early on. Entering the game, Ference's season-high in ice time was 16:17, which he picked up in the game in which Boychuk left. On Thursday, he was out there for 19:28, about six and a half minutes more than his season average of 13:00.